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And yet we had returned.
One week after my grandfather died, we sat in the car, idling before the open wrought iron gates of Harrow. Beyond, a single-lane road slithered away among the trees. The house was hidden somewhere in that thicketed wood. I could almost feel it. I could almost hear it, a whisper in the back of my mind, a voice I half remembered.
“We don’t have to do this,” Mom said. She gripped the steering wheel like she was trying to strangle it. “If we turn back now, we’ll be home before nightfall.”
I swallowed, uncertain. I’d gnawed on my lip until the skin was raw, and my body still hummed with unspent energy. I hated sitting still this long, and I’d been in the car for hours already, drowning in the silence of my mother’s stress and my apprehension.
“Helen?” Simon prompted, twisting in his seat.
“It’s your dad’s funeral,” I said, voice hoarse. “Of course we should be there.”
Mom’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. People always said we looked alike, but it was mostly the eyes. Vaughan eyes, so dark they were almost black. Hers were framed with a sweep of dark lashes and indifferently smudged eyeliner. My lashes were thinner, lighter, my hair a muted brown, chopped off at jaw-length, in contrast with her rich mahogany waves.
“Your nightmares...” Mom began.
“They’re just dreams,” I said, and it felt like lying. “Besides, could you live with yourself if you didn’t go?”
She sighed. “No, you’re right. I have to do this. If only to make absolutely sure he’s really dead.” She gave an unconvincing laugh. “You two. Always taking care of me.”
“Always,” Simon said, his hand on her knee. I nodded. Always. That was our pledge. The three of us against the world.
The car rolled forward. As we drove, the land rose to either side in steep hills until I couldn’t tell if we were descending or if the forest was rising. The trees, hemlock and birch and oak, wove a thick carpet of shadow over everything, the gray veiled sky gleaming between the branches. And then, suddenly, we were out of the trees, spilling from the cleft between the hills, and Harrow stood before us.
I didn’t know when the dreams had started. I couldn’t remember a time before them. I would wake in the night screaming and clawing at my throat, babbling about shadows and about being buried, about a spiral that wound endlessly inward. The dreams always began the same way: damp earth all around me, holding me down as I stared up at a dark looming house.
This house.
I would have known it anywhere. The windows were blank eyes, reflecting the overcast sky, and the dark stone drank in the light, swallowing it down. The flower beds lay fallow in preparation for the winter and were already scabbed over with frost, and though I’d expected a crowd of funeral attendees, there was no sign of another living soul.
“Welcome to Harrow,” Mom said drily.
I had gone completely still—an alien state for me. I always had to be moving: my leg jittering under a table, my fingers tappingout random patterns on my thigh. But beneath the gaze of that place, I froze like a rabbit on a road at night, surrendering to the deadly velocity of the thing bearing down on it.
Simon whistled. “So this is where you grew up. The pictures don’t do it justice.”
“They really don’t,” Mom said. Her shoulders tensed, like she was thinking about flooring the gas and peeling out of there.
I knew that if I asked her to, Mom would turn around—but she needed this. I was going to be there for her at her father’s funeral and support her and not make her life any harder than I already had just by existing. I wasn’t a normal kid. I didn’t have friends. Couldn’t be in school. Couldn’t be in one place for too long, or... things started to happen. Things we didn’t talk about.
And there was another reason not to leave. Harrow had haunted me since I left its gates ten years ago.
I wanted to know why.
And so I didn’t say anything as she wrenched the parking brake up. We clambered out of the car, all stiff limbs and stumbling. I tilted my head back to look up. The peaks of the house stretched toward the sky, and with my head tilted back, all I could see were gray clouds and those slashes of roof. It left me dizzy, like there was no ground at all, just a sky to fall into.
“Have you ever seen such a spooky old house?” Simon asked. I fell back down to earth and looked at him. He gave me an easy smile. “Gives me the heebie-jeebies for sure.” He was the sort of guy who could say “spooky” and “heebie-jeebies” without a trace of irony and thoughtJumanjiwas “a bit on the scary side.” I loved him for it.
The front door opened, and a man in a black suit stepped out. His hair was peppered with gray, and his beard had patches of white at the jaw, but all the lines on his face only made his smile look warmer. Uncle Caleb, Mom’s older brother.
“You made it,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“It’s not that long a drive,” Mom said. Her fingertips brushed the back of my elbow, just a soft touch to sayI’m here. You’re here.
“You know what I mean,” he said gently. He stepped forward. They didn’t hug. They did an odd sort of forearm clasp–cheek kiss combination that was smooth and practiced but still intensely uncomfortable. I fixed a smile on my face and prepared to stumble my way through this ritual, but Caleb put out his hand instead. “Helen. I’m Caleb.”
“I know.” When I shook his hand, something in his firm, friendly grip eased the tension in my shoulders.
“I wondered if you’d remember me,” he said.
